Passenger jet plunges into Hudson River

Ian Munro, New York

All passengers aboard a US Airways flight that crash-landed in the Hudson River off New York City have survived after scrambling from the jet's wings to the safety of rescue vessels as the plane sank in the icy waters.

Rescuers in a fleet of ferries and Coast Guard boats rushed to the jet as it sat partly submerged in the river. Passengers clustered onto the wings of the plane and inflatable emergency chutes as the waters rose around it.

Passengers stand on the wings of a US Airways plane after it landed in the Hudson River in New York. The Airbus, with about 150 passengers and crew on board, had just taken off from La Guardia Airport. Photo: Reuters

The air temperature in New York was -6 degrees Celsius when the crash happened, 3.26pm New York time (7.26am AEDT); the murky waters of the Hudson were 4 degrees.

About 150 passengers and crew were aboard Airbus A320 flying from LaGuardia Airport in New York to Charlotte, North Carolina. They were taken ashore in Manhattan, where they were wrapped in blankets to ward off the cold.

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The New York Fire Department said 78 people were hurt but the extent of the injuries wasn't immediately known.

Half of the fuselage of the Airbus 320, as well as its tail, could still be seen floating in the frigid waters for some time.

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It is believed a double bird strike may have brought down flight 1549. Witnesses said they saw a flock of birds near the plane shortly after it took off from La Gaurdia. The plane crashed about three minutes after take off. The pilot may have been trying to make an emergency landing at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport.

The US Federal Aviation Authority confirmed all those on board had survived and said there had been 148 passengers and five or six crew members on the ill-fated flight. The FAA said it was an accident that may have been the result of a collision with some birds but was unable to say so definitively.

"Right now we don't have any indication right now that this was anything other than an accident,'' the FAA's Laura Crown said.

Passenger Jeff Kolodjay said he heard an explosion two or three minutes into the flight. He looked out of the left side of the plane and could see one of the engines on fire.

"The captain said, 'Brace for impact because we're going down','' Kolodjay said and added: "It was intense. It was intense. You've got to give it to the pilot. He made a hell of a landing.''

He and others had made "sure that women and children got on'' to a raft. "There was a lady with a baby trying to crawl over the seats and I just said, 'women and children first'.''

I can't believe he somehow managed to land that plane safely.

New York governor David Paterson praised the efforts of the "heroic" pilot. "This was potentially a very tragic incident,'' he said. "This pilot was somehow without any engines able to land the plane.''

And New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said divers had dragged some passengers from the water, praised the pilot.

"I had a long conversation with the pilot," Bloomberg said. "He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off ... It would appear that the pilot did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river, and then making sure everybody got out.''

British Airways pilot Eric Moody told Sky News in Britain that the landing was a "textbook ditching".

"That very rarely happens, unless you are near a runway. Whoever has flown that has done a really good job," Mr Moody said.

Passenger Alberto Panero told CNN he escaped through one of the forward doors. He said that shortly after take off there was a loud bang and the cabin smelled of smoke.

He said the captain warned passengers to adopt the brace position - heads either between knees or firm against the seat in front - before the plane landed in the river.

"We knew we were going down, then we just hit the water. Somehow the plane stayed afloat," he said. "I can't believe he somehow managed to land that plane safely. It's a near death experience that thankfully did not turn out that way."

"It didn't seem like it was out of control, we knew something was going on,'' he said.

"All of a sudden, the captain came on and said, 'Brace for impact,' and that's when we knew we were going down, into the water. And we just hit and somehow the plane, you know, stayed afloat and we were all able to get on the raft and - it's just incredible right now that everybody's still alive.''

He said the time between impact and people leaving the plane was "less than a minute". After some initial panic people calmed down once they realised they were going to escape. He said he believed all the passengers had escaped unharmed.

Witness Barbara Sambriski, a researcher at The Associated Press, watched the plane's descent: "I just thought, 'Why is it so low?' And, splash, it hit the water,'' she said.

The plane was submerged in the icy waters up to the windows, and rescue crews opened the door. TV pictures showed rescuers pulling passengers in yellow life vests from the plane. Several boats surrounded the plane, which appeared to be slowly sinking.

"I saw what appeared to be a tail fin of a plane sticking out of the water,'' said Erica Schietinger, whose office windows at Chelsea Piers look out over the Hudson. "All the boats have sort of circled the area ... I can't tell what's what at this point.''

Another witness, Ben Vonklemperer, said he had seen what at the time appeared to be "a small commercial plane flying south making a gradual landing.

"I saw it hit the water. It made a big splash,'' he told CNN. "I did see it hit the water at a very gradual angle. It appeared not to have landing gear engaged,'' he said.

"The way they hit it was very gradual. A very slow contact with the water that it made.''

The Hudson River crash comes 27 years and two days after an Air Florida Boeing 737-222 airliner crashed into the 14th Street bridge in Washington and plunged into the Potomac River immediately after takeoff in a snow storm on January 13, 1982.

The accident killed 78 people, including four motorists on the bridge.